Why I Prefer the Droid Incredible to the Droid X or Evo 4G

Google Maps Navigation got me there and back smoothly. On
the return trip home, and with the GPS app guiding me in the background, I checked the play-by-play of a Mets baseball game on
ESPN, browsed the Web, watched YouTube clips and made a handful of calls for three hours.
The phone's 1540mAh battery conked out at 6 p.m., after 10 hours
of sometimes light, sometimes heavy use. This proved
much better than my experience with the Evo 4G, whose battery life was quickly depleted
on a 90-minute Metro North train ride on one occasion and 15 minutes of
watching tennis on ESPN Mobile on another.

For me, the other part to calling is texting, which means
using the virtual keyboard. Google and Motorola have done something wonderful
here. The virtual keys are, for the first time on an Android phone, almost
iPhone-like in their wideness and ease of use.

I have small, but somewhat clumsy fingers and I had a hard time using the virtual keyboard on the first Droid. The
improvement, even over the Droid Incredible and Evo 4G, is amazing.
Typing, texting, anything with the keyboard was a joy. With keys like
this, a slideout QWERTY keyboard seems superfluous.
Moreover, the preloaded Swype app will help users type even faster allowing
people to execute swipe gestures across the virtual keys, typing up to 50 words
a minute.
Don't get me wrong, I didn't type 50 words per minute or
anything. From my experience, Swype, while easy to use, takes a day to get used
to. Practice will make you better, but you have to be patient with the new app.
The
Droid X also sports several other preloaded multimedia apps, including Skype
for Mobile, NFL Mobile and a Blockbuster mobile application, all of which worked
well in the demonstration pit at Verizon's launch June 23.
The Google app
assortment of Gmail, Maps, YouTube and Talk is also ready and waiting, as is
the always-improving Google Search by voice and the growing Android Market, 65,000 apps and counting.
One knock on the phone is the Motoblur user interface. While I used the
HTC Sense UI on the Droid Incredible and Evo 4G with great facility, I found
Motoblur to be a bit of a drag, with big, ugly widget buttons pointing some
things out on the seven homescreens that are thankfully customizable. I wasn't
the only one who had an issue with this UI.
I also did a lot of hunting and pecking to jump from one
app to the next, or searching for this feature or that. It felt like features
were hiding. I eschewed the preloaded social networking widgets,
which serve as the counterpart to HTC Sense's fine Friendstream, because I didn't
feel comfortable with MotoBlur. What would it do to my apps?
I didn't get that sense of fear, uncertainty and doubt from HTC's
Sense. But to be fair I've used the Sense UI extensively back to back on the
Droid Incredible and Evo 4G, so there may be some user bias on my part. Maybe I
had a hard time flitting around Sense on the Incredible and just got better
from practice for the Evo 4G.
The Droid X will also serve as a WiFi hotspot, connecting up to five
WiFi-enabled devices for $20 extra per month for 2 GB of data
usage. Verizon's standard $29.99 smartphone data plan also applies.
Would I buy the Droid X? No, but that's not because I
don't like it. It is a fine, fine phone. But having tested three
Android 2.1 devices before it, I prefer the HTC Sense UI better and
prefer a smaller display,
making the Droid Incredible still my favorite Android device to date.
Putting aside network allegiances and contracts, given a
choice between the Droid X and the Evo 4G I might take the Droid X.
That's due to my aversion to Motoblur and because of the great battery
life compared to the Evo 4G, which burned down too
quickly for my taste.
Need any other impressions to help make a decision? Drop
me a line in the comments. I'll be playing with the device for the next three
weeks.